With apologies to Stevie Wonder, for whom it was once an album title, nothing is "hotter than July." July was the hottest month. Maybe you're waiting for that sentence to be qualified: "hottest month of the last 20 years," let's say. But it turns out

It's exhausting being both a conservative and a critic of President Trump. When I aim my pen at the White House, many of my comrades on the right go nuts. And readers who love it when I go after Trump turn into a cage full of poo-flinging monkeys whe

By definition, what 14 million viewers watched on TV last Thursday night was not a debate -- not even close. Here's how dictionary.com defines "debate": "A discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints ... a formal

Immigrant children are dying at the border, President Trump boasts of being "locked and loaded" against Iran and the Amazon rainforest is burning. No wonder critics say we media workers should not be spending time on presidential candidates' gaffes.

Andrew Yang, who has been called "the internet's favorite candidate," turned into something of a latter-day Oprah during Thursday night's 2020 Democratic presidential debate. Instead of offering each member of his audience a new car, as Oprah Winfrey

Our subject today is a word. It seems to be the word of the moment, at least on the political left. One can hardly read an opinion page or watch cable news without confronting this tiresome term, this irksome idiom. For the love of heaven, people, pl

The drama leading up to and surrounding the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks was an unfortunate distraction. President Trump invited the Taliban to meet at Camp David for "peace talks" -- against the wishes of the democratically elected go

The biggest joke on the planet may be the phrase "national security." It almost always justifies something brutal, whether outright murder (a.k.a. war) or climate apartheid -- the rejection and condemnation of refugees who are fleeing terrible condit

DUBLIN -- "When would you like to schedule your knee replacement surgery?" asked my American doctor before I left for Ireland? I gave him a date that works for me (I'm calling it the result of an old basketball injury, not advancing age). His office

President Donald Trump has one extremely laudable, consistently present quality that even his most ardent critics should acknowledge. The characteristic is among the most steadfast aspects of Trump's personality. It's derived from grief, regret, and

In 1879, on the road leading into Dodge City, there stood a sign. "The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited," it said. As recounted in the book "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America" by Adam Winkler, the gun control ordina

It's not every day that a CEO of a major corporation voluntarily warns potential consumers against using his or her product. But underage consumers are a special case. "Don't vape. Don't use Juul," Juul CEO Kevin Burns said Thursday in an interview o

Early Monday morning, Donald Trump tweeted: "94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, a record. Thank you!" Where the president got this specific number remains a mystery. Recent polls by YouGov put his GOP approval roughly 10 points lower, and G

PARIS -- President Trump was right to cancel a "secret” meeting with leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government following two bomb attacks by the terrorist group that killed 10 civilians, an American soldier and a Romanian service member in hea

Finally, Floridians can breathe a mass sigh of relief. All those manic storm chasers from the Weather Channel are gone. Now we can reclaim our beaches, jetties and fishing piers, where for nearly a week we dodged TV crews and bleary-eyed corresponden

If you're going to lie, make it a good one. Meaning, put some effort into it. Make it convincing. Make sure the truth is not easily discoverable. Don't just draw on a weather map with a Sharpie. That's apparently what Donald Trump or someone in his e

Nothing spoils a good outrage like an intrusion of facts. Outrage boiled up in news and social networks once again after the dropping of federal charges against former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, a Peoria Republican, became official on Wednesday. Some ob

"Climate change is an existential crisis," Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared Tuesday, unveiling her plan to fight climate change in advance of CNN's interminable townhall event on the topic with 10 Democratic presidential candidates. The use of the term

This is not Sam Walton's America. Children are outfitted for the first day of school with bullet-proof backpacks that fearful parents purchased along with pencils, crayons and erasers. Grade school teachers learn the protocols of active shooter drill

". . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." These lost words -- Isaiah 2:4 -- are nearly 3,000 years old. Did they

The late bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton is said to have been asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, to which he supposedly replied, "Because that's where the money is." In his autobiography, Sutton denied the quote, but it serves as a warnin

As many White House reporters have already pointed out, there's a serious problem covering the Trump administration. Which is this. It's like the proverbial firehose. There's so much news coming at you so fast, it's impossible to keep up with it all.

Part of the fun of watching edgy stand-up comedians is what I call the "Demolition Derby Effect." Just as demolition derbies were born out of the belief that a lot of ticket buyers would rather watch cars wreck than race, a lot of people pay to watch

"No Democrat is going to win the nomination for president of the United States without African American support. Nor should they," Kate Bedingfield, Joe Biden's deputy campaign manager, told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell last week. Bedingfield was pushing

"I am tired of the dying," said Greg Abbott on Sunday. And well he should be. The Texas governor was in Odessa, in the western part of his state, to preside over a mass shooting there: seven dead, not counting the shooter, and 22 wounded, one of them

One doesn't have to be a cynic to be cynical about the Justice Department's decision not to hold former FBI Director James Comey accountable for what an Inspector General report called his violation of FBI policies and his setting a "dangerous exampl

"America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy..." -- Warren G. Harding, 1920 I like Joe Biden. His gaffes, his mistreatment of Anita Hill and even his kissy-face behavior with segregationists notwithstanding, I think h

In the grand narrative of the 2020 presidential race, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and former Sen. Al Franken have found themselves on a political seesaw. As her political fortunes have crashed in recent months, Franken's -- if he has any -- appear to hav

The College Board didn't intend to trigger America's longstanding squeamishness around race, class and educational achievement. But that's exactly what happened when it tried to introduce a measure of "adversity" that test-takers have faced in life.

Here's an idea: Joe Biden should run a front porch campaign. Front porch campaigns were once a common feature of American presidential politics, though the term wasn't always applied to the practice. The most famous front porch campaigns were in the